Maternity pay has gone too far

[EasterIssland]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c781m9v4255o

apologies if there is another thread about it.
havent seen one.

im lucky enough to have a good salary that would allow me saving beforehand . Statutory maternity pay would mean around 20-30% of my salary. Is this too far? It’s one of the many reasons why we decided to only have one. I felt really vulnerable when I was on maternity leave and didn’t feel I kept having spare cash every month. I do understand what she means tho , the sooner we’re back the less we get from the government and more taxes we pay. Coming from a woman hurts even more not being recognised the sacrifices we do whilst we are on maternity leave

This has made me feel quite annoyed. I had tried for years to get pregnant and DD was a much longer fir surprise but it did put a strain on us that I had resigned from my job a week before I discovered I was pregnant and they wouldn’t let me retract my resignation. I couldn’t start the course I was going to do either because I wouldn’t have finished it in time so I had to trudge all over London picking up any temp job I could find. Luckily I could claim MA and when it finished I went to work PT. This should be here to help women in that kind of situation. Would she have thought I had ‘chosen’ it?

Exactly this. The UK has among the least generous maternity/paternity leave in the world.

We need to be heavily encouraging an increase in birth rates, by investing in improvements to maternity pay and services, not restricting it further.

This is why she has come up with this nonsense. Because she wants to be Tory leader and in order to do so, she needs to appeal to the 80 year old Blue rinse brigade that makes up the Tory membership. People who had babies in the 70's and think the world should still be the same.
Hilariously shes has to desperately row back after all the men in the leadership race disagreed with her!

I hope nobody ever votes for this misogynistic, homophobic, racist person, and she disappears back into oblivion.

Can you tell me where this is from? It doesn't look right in relation to Turkey so I'd like to look in more detail as to what they base this on (purely for my own interest!) For the avoidance of doubt I don't agree with KB at all, I think the current entitlement feels about right but I was lucky enough to have a CS maternity package so got 6m paid before going onto stat and then unpaid so can't speak from personal experience. @completelyjo

BUT AT LEAST THEY KNOW WHAT A WOMAN IS (bleated all the idiots)

aka half the population we can shaft as we don’t see them as worthy as the menfolk

That is true. I was last to stop exclusively breastfeeding at 9 months in my peer group.

But I did need that 3 months after to sort myself out. Up until that point I hadn't really had a chance to sort my own life out after a year of personal neglect. My milk wasn’t the type you could store unfortunately so it was straight from the tap or not at all.

Finally had a chance to attend physio and put my body back together. Get haircut, go clothes shopping, dentist, resocialise myself, engage brain and catch-up on training for work, catch up on sleep etc.

I will 100% be doing a year again this time.

I facepalm every time this woman opens her mouth.

Inadequate mat leave is the prime example of structural sexism in this country. It's a tool of oppression and inequality. Why is having a baby not treated exactly like sick pay, you are unable to work because there's a tiny wee person wholly dependent on you, you are unlikely to be getting adequate sleep and you also probably went through a lot physically. A woman can get months of full pay from her work for something like a hysterectomy, but not for giving birth. We need to view childbirth and the initial months of childcare not simply as a women's burden, it's society's burden and women should be adequately looked after while they do it

IMO parents in the UK deserve far more maternity leave/pay. Where I live (Brit in Canada), we can take up to 18 months of statutory paid maternity leave. If you choose 12 months of leave, you get up to 55% of your salary, and if you choose 18 months, you get up to 33%. Many companies, like mine, also offer to top your pay up to be closer to your salary for a set period of time. 18 months afforded me the time to establish breastfeeding, see DS meet numerous milestones, figure out naps and sleep, wean him, etc etc. It’s been incredible and something I wish all my friends in the UK could have the option of. Parents need more support and paid leave, not less. Never less 🤦🏼‍♀️

Doesn’t she, hilariously, get lots of love over on the “feminist” board?

Obviously she is - as always - being an idiot, a misogynist, classist, hateful etc. No surprise there. Do we think wanting to roll back mat pay is a popular opinion among Tory members though? That would concern me more than Kemi being her usual ridiculous self.

Agreed. SMP was very limited in my day (90s) but back then it was easier to survive on one income. Given the cost of living (including the crazy childcare costs). Just because I never had that, does not mean I begrudge other mothers from recieving more SMP.

policies like this are to give the far-right Tory voters something to wank over

It doesn't matter what proportion of women breastfeed, what does matter is that that decision should never have to be a financial one - whether that's because of a need to return to work or because of the price of formula.

All women should have the right to EBF should they wish to (and of course to formula feed free of judgement should they wish).

Absolutely. I work for a small family firm and while in many ways they are excellent I'm 100% sure that my boss would make the absolute minimum allowances for pregnancy if he could because we have 5 employees!

Why do those countries have better female participation?

Well if shes trying NOT to get elected she should crack on

Typical Tories talking about things as if they’re a lifestyle choice. If women didn’t have children there would be nobody left to work in companies, there would be nobody to look after old people, the country would cease to exist. Therefore it benefits society as a whole. Women can’t have children without mat leave. And it’s important for the baby to spend time with the mother instead of them having to rush back to work. We should be proud of our mat leave rules, not trying to diminish them.

We have poorer maternity benefits than many European countries and pay almost the lowest State Pension in Europe, one of the worst health systems and the most expensive care for the elderly systems. We also pay lower contributions into these systems and less tax than many European countries. We pay much more out in terms of numbers who could but don't work and sit at home unemployed claiming a range of benefits, and those who could work but choose to live on long term sickness . We make some benefits very easy to claim. For example- I have said this before and it never goes down well but it's true- there are thousands and thousands of parents weekly claiming benefits for 'looking after' their children who they have had diagnosed privately as having ADHD. Many of these children do not have it and would not get the diagnosis and medication through an Ed Psych and the NHS. I am not exaggerating when I say I see this every working day.
Why we are attacking women and the elderly I have no idea. We need to get people off unemployment and into work, stop designating them as unable to work and make living off benefits much tougher than it is. They should be contributing wherever they can, not taking.
Building a fairer society is about supporting the elderly, the disabled, those who are really sick, women who have had babies and making sure children have a good start in life. It is not about many of the people who choose to not work and expect the State to pay for that. There are far too many idle, dodgers, wimps and liars in our society.
We should reduce to zero for any household (not person) earning under £35,000 Council Tax should be paid per person living in a house with a staggered rate for children over 5 and should be based on household income. We need to bump up the living standards of the less well off people. It isn't hard to do.
I'm sure I'll be flamed for this but it's true.

I'm a woman who couldn't have children but I have friends who are mummys, who have had their maternity leave and come back and I've watched them struggle with the nursery/school pick up times and partners not pulling their weight but we've sorted work stuff so they can get away on time etc. It's not just one woman making return to work possible. It's a team of women smoothing things over to keep the engine running.
What bugs me is the people who do take the piss with mat leave. When things have got a bit shaky at work, I have seen several colleagues say, "Oh might get pregnant so I don't have to deal with this boss" etc and they've gone and done exactly that! Then there's the one who has had three successive babies back to back and she hasn't actually been in work for two and a half years but we've had to cover her workload. She's also bragged about not keeping her qualifications or professional registrations up to date so she won't even be employable when she does return!!!

"Maternity pay has gone too far" and "... not all cultures are equally valid"

Remember, this is from a woman who less than 3 months ago was the Minister for Women and Equalities, and had held the post for 2 years. No wonder she achieved absolutely nothing of note during her time in office, during which she was also Secretary of State for Business and Trade - a post in which she likewise achieved fuck all.

I'm in YVR and am fortunate to be SAHM. Despite our mat leave being good, comparatively, it behooves us to push for better. ☺️

In fairness, I think what she was saying has been deliberately misrepresented. If the headline was what she meant, she wouldn’t have corrected it.

Maternity pay is a modern phenomenon that is necessary because we live in a highly atomised, highly taxed, highly regulated world. Yet despite the creation of this benefit (which gives us the right toe return to work after a whole year off compared with 3 months in the US) our birth rates are declining. Add to that the data that a third of women are childless, but only 5% are voluntarily childless. It indicates that there is a lot wrong in our society.

She has always been an immature, misogynistic pick me.

SMP is too low considering how the work mothers are doing contributes to society.

Have you listened to the actual interview? This article misrepresents what she actually said and conflated her comments on general business regulation (which she thinks goes too far) and maternity pay (about which her comments were more about saving up and taking responsibility for having children). She didn't say maternity pay has gone too far.

There are plenty of her views with which I strongly disagree and plenty of points I could criticise but this was lazy clickbait journalism from the BBC.